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About us
My name is Emanuele, I’m 36, I’m married, and I’m the dad of one beautiful baby boy. My wife Romana and I are keen travellers and enthusiast photographers - in 2010 we set off on our first around the world trip and started our travel and photography blog, which you can see here: www.thesiracusas.com
Although photography is not our first job, we make some money from it and we expect our income stream from photography to increase steadily in the near future.
Some of our travel photography work has ended up on several publishing outlets, including a travel magazine, the Daily Mail online, and the National Geographic stock. In 2011 I received an honourable mention at the PX3, Prix de la Photographie, Paris. We also do occasional jobs as photographers for a local marketing agency and we’ve covered several local events as freelance photographers.
Why this campaign?
One month ago thieves broke into our home and stole our gear. The camera insurance we bought in Ireland before we set off on our extended trip expired a few months ago and we were still looking to find a suitable insurer here in Italy. So we weren't covered and fate intervened.
Apart from the shock of having been robbed, I don't know which broke our hearts more: the loss of the master files of 99% of our travel photography portfolio, or the actual financial damage, at a time when we can't afford to buy new cameras, lenses and computers. In any case, we didn't sleep for nights afterwards.
A month has passed and even though we’ve tried everything, the chances of getting our stuff back now are pretty much nonexistent.
Photography is our life passion, and we are working hard towards making it into a full time job. Now with the new responsibilities of bringing up our baby boy, the hit is even more unfortunate, and we need all the help we can get.
A couple of friends pointed us to Indiegogo and encouraged us to start a campaign to try to recover some of the cost of buying new gear before we hit the market. We were a bit doubtful at first but then we asked another bunch of friends and they all thought starting this campaign was a good idea, given the woeful situation we’re in.
How much you're trying to raise?
Apart from our laptops, the hard disks where our photos were stored, and some camera accessories like memory cards, replacement batteries, chargers and filters, this is what we’ve lost-
Cameras:
- Canon 5d Mark II
- Canon 500d
Lenses
- Canon 24-105 f/4
- Canon 16-35 f/2.8
- Canon 50 f/1.8
Lights
- Canon Speedlite 580 EX II
- Canon Transmitter ST e2
Now, the whole damage amounts to the equivalent of about $8000, and although it would be great to raise the whole the amount through this campaign, we’re starting at $3000 which would be enough to buy a second hand full frame camera and perhaps a decent general purpose lens to live with for a while (I do need to factor in Indiegogo's and PayPal fees).
What do I get?
In exchange for your help we’re giving out some of our prints (look at the perks on the sidebar for more details) and hopefully this will make it worthwhile for you. You can pick your prints from this Flickr album, and leave us a comment or contact us privately to tell us your pick.
We bet one or more of our prints would be a great fit in your living room!
And if I want to help further?
if you want to help us even more, please consider any of the following:
- spread the word - share this campaign with your friends on your social networks or on email, and ask them to give us a hand
- do you have any extra remote freelance job for us? Send it our way. We do translations (EN to PT and/or IT), instructional design, corporate training & development consultancy, photography and photography related assignments, and customer service. Any extra income is very welcome!
- are you able to help us buy photography gear at a discounted price? Shoot us an email
Thanks for your time and contribution!
